Castlereagh interrogation centre in east Belfast, the scene of many of
the complaints of police brutality at the heart of current appeals, was
a forbidding place with a terrifying reputation.

It was the subject of several Amnesty International complaints, one
government commission of inquiry and at least one secret internal police
investigation.

For more than 20 years the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and
successive British government ministers maintained that IRA propaganda
was largely to blame for its notoriety, and that whatever abuses did
occur were the responsibility of a few “rotten apples”.

However, a number of former RUC interrogators, men who worked at
Castlereagh during the 70s, 80s and 90s, have recently told the Guardian
that the beatings, the sleep deprivation and the other tortures were
systematic, and were, at times, sanctioned at a very high level within
the force.

One told how Detective Chief Superintendent Bill Mooney, the RUC’s most
senior detective, would fire up his interrogators before they entered
the interview rooms, demanding: “What are you, men or mice - get in
there!”. If they failed to quickly break a suspect, Mooney would ask
them: “Have I got to get in there and do it myself?”

At their morning conferences, detectives became reluctant to suggest
that a particular suspect “might not be involved” for fear that other
interrogators would be assigned to the case and obtain a confession.

While the sources insist that not all suspects were mistreated, both IRA
suspects and loyalists were beaten, burned with cigarettes or lighters,
forced to assume stressful positions for long periods, stripped and
humiliated, and sometimes threatened with murder. Some suffered such
severe injuries that they were taken to hospital.

Some two-strong interrogation teams became known for a particular form
of abuse, and would be called upon to inflict it on the more
recalcitrant suspects.

A handful, for example, specialised in a technique known as
“dorsi-flexing” - stretching a suspects’ wrists or elbows into painful
positions, sometimes for hours a time. Eventually, one former
interrogator recalls, doctors examining suspects after interrogation
found that this caused slight swelling. “These men were quietly told:
‘Stop it - your system is showing through here’.”

Some interrogators simply punched suspects as close to the centre of
their stomachs as possible, knowing that soft tissue bruised less when
not located near bone.

At other police stations, such as Strand Road in Derry, some suspects
were interrogated in bedrooms intended for the accommodation of single
officers. “There would be one bathroom for every six or so bedrooms,”
one source recalls. “The baths would be filled with water and suspects
would be forced under.”

At Omagh, detectives questioned some suspects inside an enormous disused
armoury with heavy steel doors, a place that could unsettle even the
interrogators at times.

All the former detectives who spoke to the Guardian said alcohol played
a part, with some of the most severe beatings being meted out after
interrogators had taken a break, during which they would down a few
whiskies or vodkas.

The driving force behind the brutality was a determination to secure
more convictions in the judge-only Diplock courts that had been
established in 1973 once it became clear that internment without trial
was counter-productive.

A couple of dozen young detectives had been formed into specialised
interrogation teams in 1975. The following year - which saw the loss of
307 lives, the second-worst annual toll of the Troubles - these teams
were expanded. By 1977 they were beginning to see results.

“We were getting headlines every day about the number of people charged,
about so-and-so getting 30 years,” one former Castlereagh interrogator
recalls. “The chief constable was happy, Mooney was happy, the press
were happy. Everything was wonderful.” Explaining that he thought it
“time to set the historical record straight”, he added: “There was
plenty of slap and tickle. No doubt about it, people were being
assaulted.”

Another, more bluntly, said he had obtained confessions by employing
what he described as “torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading
treatment” - exactly what was prohibited by law.

But in 1977, the former detectives said, they believed genuinely that
they were turning the tide, that their strong-arm tactics were starting
to win the war against the IRA, and defeat the loyalist gunmen.

Looking back, several former RUC interrogators insist they tried to
ensure that suspects confessed only to crimes that their intelligence
suggested those individuals had committed. A common refrain was: “We
wouldn’t have wanted to see men jailed for things they didn’t do.”
Moreover, they maintain that there were probably no more miscarriages of
justice in Northern Ireland than in the rest of the UK during that
period. “It was a bit rough and ready elsewhere at that time,” said one.

Not everybody at Castlereagh was happy during the late 70s, however.
Police doctors, on standby to offer suspects an examination before
interrogation, and to check them again before they were charged, began
to see increasing evidence of mistreatment. Some prisoners required
immediate hospital treatment. Some doctors began to complain, both
privately and publicly.

Many of the victims would be deeply reluctant to speak out, however,
saying they had been warned that worse would follow if they lodged a
complaint.

In June 1978, Amnesty published a report calling for a “public and
impartial inquiry” into events at Castlereagh. The government appointed
Harry Bennett, an English circuit judge, to examine “police procedures
and practice” in Northern Ireland. Despite his narrow remit, Bennett
came to the unavoidable conclusion that some injuries “were inflicted by
someone other than the prisoner himself”, and recommended that CCTV be
installed in interview rooms so that uniformed RUC officers could watch
their plain-clothed counterparts.

Ten months later, when a new chief constable, Jack Hermon, was appointed
to lead the RUC, the CCTV cameras had still not been installed.
Nevertheless, former interrogators say the frequency of the beatings
fell rapidly, almost overnight.

“The new chief constable was completely against any mistreatment of
prisoners whatsoever,” said one. “We started to detect a change from
Bill Mooney straight away. Bill missed the Monday morning conference a
couple of times - he was in with Hermon. One day Mooney came out and
told us we were not to lay a finger on anybody at Castlereagh.”

Hermon, a former head of community relations at the RUC who had a number
of close friends among the Catholic clergy, had come to the conclusion
that the abuse of prisoners was damaging the reputation of his force to
such an extent that it had become counter-productive.

Complaints of severe beatings at Castlereagh did not end completely,
however, and a decade later such allegations became common once more.

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